Recipe ~ Fettuccine Carbonara

by BUTTERfly

Putting on my chef's hat, I think I will introduced to you the first food that I manage to cook successfully up to a chef's standard (yes, I'm a lousy cook. So if I can do it, so can you!). What I mean by chef's standard is I manage to made it comparable to the pasta you can get in places like Secret Recipe. I prefer fettuccine to spaghetti as I feel the wider surface of fettucine helps one to savour the taste of the creamy carbonara sauce. Note that all the ingredient need to be roughly estimated depending on size of serving. Use your judgement as I don't measure my ingredients. Also note the price quoted are rough figures.

Figure 1: Fettuccine Carbonara

Ingredient
1. Fettuccine
2. Butter
3. Bacon (choice of pork, beef or others) - sliced into small pieces
4. Salt
5. Pepper
6. Egg yolk
7. Parmesan cheese (grated)
8. Cooking cream
9. Cooking oil

Preparation Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Cooking:
1. Fettuccine - Boil water in a pot. Add a little bit of salt and cooking oil (so that the fettuccine would not stick to each other) when the water is boiled (ie: there's massive bubbles on the surface of the water). Then add fettuccine into the pot and monitor it so that it will not stick to each other from time to time. Boil until its soft but firm. Do not overcook it. It is best to refer to the cooking time of the fettuccine at the back of the packaging. Off the gas, drain the fettuccine and put it into a bowl. Add a little bit of butter, stir it into the fettuccine so that it will not harden and stick to each other while you are making the sauce.

2. Bacon - While boiling the fettuccine, you can start frying the bacon with cooking oil in a pan (it taste nicer with olive oil). When its done, you may also add the fettuccine into the frying pan instead of letting it sits in a bowl. Stir it well in the pan together with the bacon. Thus, the cooking oil and the bacon's oil helps keep the fettuccine soft and separated from each other while you are making the carbonara sauce.

3. Carbonara sauce - In a bowl, add an egg yolk (1 egg for 1 serving), cooking milk and grated parmesan cheese. Stir it well.

4. Add the cooked fettucine and bacon into the bowl with carbonara sauce, mix well. Make sure the fettuccine and bacon are warm, but not hot as this will cooked the egg in the sauce. Finish it off with some sprinkles of salt and pepper to taste.